Whitie still
guarded the dilapidated rabbit, and Ring slept near by under a
spruce. Venters called Ring and went to the edge of the terrace,
and there halted to survey the valley.
He was prepared to find it larger than his unstudied glances had
made it appear; for more than a casual idea of dimensions and a
hasty conception of oval shape and singular beauty he had not had
time. Again the felicity of the name he had given the valley
struck him forcibly. Around the red perpendicular walls, except
under the great arc of stone, ran a terrace fringed at the
cliff-base by silver spruces; below that first terrace sloped
another wider one densely overgrown with aspens, and the center
of the valley was a level circle of oaks and alders, with the
glittering green line of willows and cottonwood dividing it in
half. Venters saw a number and variety of birds flitting among
the trees. To his left, facing the stone bridge, an enormous
cavern opened in the wall; and low down, just above the
tree-tops, he made out a long shelf of cliff-dwellings, with
little black, staring windows or doors. Like eyes they were, and
seemed to watch him. The few cliff-dwellings he had seen--all
ruins--had left him with haunting memory of age and solitude and
of something past. He had come, in a way, to be a cliff-dweller
himself, and those silent eyes would look down upon him, as if in
surprise that after thousands of years a man had invaded the
valley.
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